


Speechless

by seekingsquake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Depression, M/M, Self Loathing, pent up emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2157372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I parrot his words sometimes because he's brilliant and he knows what to say, and maybe if I can get my tongue around words he's already spoken I'll eventually get it around words of my own."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speechless

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Marvel, The Hulk, Iron Man, or anything at all.  
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]

“Just tell me how you fucking feel.”

He says it like it’s easy, like the words should be able to just push past anyone’s lips and that the emotions that follow will be pure and true. They’ll mean something. They’ll change what’s happening to us. And maybe for the people he’s used to dealing with, that’s true. Maybe he never had to ask Pepper to tell him what she felt because she would offer her emotions up to him on a silver platter, and maybe she willingly gave up a knife and fork so that he could comfortably dig in. Maybe her happiness was all bright eyes and honest laughter, and maybe her sadness was silent tears and trembling hands. Maybe her anger was as simple as slamming a door and not answering his calls for three days. He could sample her emotions and read into her actions and he never had to wonder because he could taste it all on his tongue. Her happiness like a light meringue, her sadness a sharp vodka, her anger dark roast coffee that leaves a bitter taste in the back of your throat. It’s all easy and open and safe. So fucking safe that he’s lost track, maybe, of just how dangerous it is to ask me for the same.

“Just tell me how you fucking feel.”

He looks at me like I’m a setback he’s come across in the lab that he can’t figure out. His hands hover by my face like he wants to touch but doesn’t want to box me in and he’s looking at me like I’m a problem that’s a pain in his ass and he just keeps telling me to tell him. And part of me, a really small, really insistent part of me, wants to give him what he wants. Anything. Everything. All the time. Forever. The thing is though, that I don’t know how. I never developed a good way of articulating myself and I absolutely never let myself try to fumble my way through working out my underdeveloped and highly erratic emotional landscape. Even before my whole life fell apart I tried to keep a lid on everything and now... Now I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I can’t let it go. I can’t give him what he wants.

“Talk to me, goddamnit.”

I think it’s pain and fear and uncertainty. I think it’s guilt. I think it’s desire and need and longing. Anger, definitely anger, but I don’t know what the fuck for. This is as close to begging as he’ll ever get, I know that, and I don’t want to have him like this. I like him all carefree and arrogant and aloof. It’s an act, a mask, I know that, but I like it. I like that it gives him easy laughter and sharp humour and blinding wit. I like that it lets me pretend that he’s happy, that he doesn’t want more from me than I can give him. That he doesn’t want more from me than I want to give him. Because I have nothing to give him except this necessary distance and an emotional detachment that I don’t know how to retract. He isn’t wearing the mask today, and it sort of burns to look at him. He wants me to be honest, but I don’t even know how. I’ve been a liar for so long now, and lying has always been easier than the truth. Easier even still when I wasn’t the only one lying.

“Bruce.”

I’m choking and drowning and suffocating and I need to step back. I need him to step back. We’re both too close to something that is going to cut me wide open and I don’t know how to cope with that, how to deal with that. But he _wants that_ , the bastard. He wants to break me open and poke around in the cavity of my chest and study what’s inside. I don’t even know what’s inside anymore other than the Other Guy and him, and I honestly don’t want to know. He sometimes says that I make self loathing look like a fucking sport that I’ll win at every time, but I don’t hate myself. I don’t. I just... I’m just...  I’m ashamed. I don’t even know what I’m ashamed of anymore, just that I am. And God, I can’t stand the thought of him seeing that in me. Him. Tony fucking Stark, who’s never been ashamed of anything his whole life. I need to step back. Step back. Take a fucking step back.

I don’t.

“Talk to me.”

I don’t know how. I don’t know how. I want to. I want to learn and grow and become everything he thinks I already am. But I can’t. I don’t know how. And I wonder if he knows what it feels like to be trapped in skin that periodically tries to evict you. I wonder if he knows what it’s like to lose hours, sometimes days, and one time nearly two months, of your life to something else that others try to tell you is you. But if it’s you how come you don’t remember? If it’s you, why did it break everything that ever meant anything to you? And I’m so afraid that if I open my fucking mouth I’ll tell him what it’s like. I’ll fumble through the words and paint some painfully crude emotional portrait for him but God, I really don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to ever have any idea of what any of that feels like. But he’s standing here and practically begging me for it and I’m just so tired. I’m just so tired.

“What are we doing, Bruce? Look at me. Tell me. Just fucking tell me.”

His hands are really on my face now and I want to melt right into his skin and let him carry me for the rest of our lives. He would too, if I asked him, but I can’t open my mouth and I can’t relax and I can’t give myself away. Not to him, not to anyone. I’m a fucking time bomb and the longer I stand here the closer my inevitable explosion becomes and it feels like we’re both going to die standing here like this. And I figure that if the last thing I saw was his face that wouldn’t be so bad, but I can’t even lift my gaze from the collar of his shirt.

“Look at me.”

I can’t. I can’t look up and see how fucking pathetic I must look to him. I can’t see the longing on his face, because it’s sick that he’d long for a piece of shit like me. I don’t want to see him stooped to that. I keep my eyes on the collar of his shirt and I take deep breaths and I count my heartbeats. His hands are warm and gentle and calloused and I want them. I want him. All of him, with all of me, but I can’t give in. I don’t know how to take what I want without breaking him, and I refuse to break him. I refuse.

“Bruce, Goddamn-- fuck! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He’s angry and scared and confused, and I stopped all the words from spilling out before they fully formulated but I can’t stop the burst of hysterical laughter. He steps away from me as if I’d burned him and I can’t stop laughing and it hurts so fucking bad. This whole situation hurts so fucking bad. I’m running myself in circles and I can’t figure anything out. I’m angry and scared and confused, and so is he, and I’m trapped.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?”

I parrot his words sometimes because he’s brilliant and he knows what to say, and maybe if I can get my tongue around words he’s already spoken I’ll eventually be able to get it around words of my own. He nods with a painful impatience and I laugh and it hurts and he’s surprised when I finally manage to ask him what the fuck _isn’t_ wrong with me. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into him and I know I need to at least step back. I need to probably flee the fucking country.

I don’t.

I stand there in the circle of his arms and I want to scream but instead I’m laughing and the only words I know how to say are _what the fuck isn’t wrong with me_. I’m laughing and laughing, but I feel this wetness in my hair and realize that holy shit. Tony Stark is crying. And I try to stop laughing because it’s inappropriate to laugh when the only person who’s ever wanted to really see you is crying, but I’ve never been very good at containing things that don’t want to be contained. I’m biting my tongue and holding in the laughter, but now my whole body is shaking. He holds me tighter and tells me to let it go, it’s okay, let it go. And I mean to, but the laughter doesn’t come out again.

The scream does.

Later, he makes me promise that I’ll talk to him before it gets this bad again. He’s worried, he says, about me getting low and feeling like I don’t have a way out. He says that I have him and the team and I’m not alone. He makes me promise not to bottle it up and not to run away. And because it’s what he wants, I do. I promise. But the thing is, I’ve never been good at telling the truth. I don’t know how. So.

“Just tell me how you fucking feel.”

I don’t.


End file.
